You know I rather liked Beast Wars the television series. It had clever writing, solid voice acting, and smart directing that allowed it to overcome the limitations of mid-90's computer animation. This review is not about the television series, it is about Beast Wars the toyline. I am going to look at the two forerunners of Transformers return to the toy shelves after Generation 2. It is through these toys the entire line will be judge. Now you may be asking is it fair to judge an entire line of toys just by two figures?

Of course it is.

So without further ado, here is the Optimus Primal vs. Megatron two-pack.

TRUKK NOT BAHT

So yeah, Optimus Primal is a weird greyish blue bat. I've never really seen a bat in this color although I once saw a red bat at a petting zoo. He's one of those rare bats that has a gigantic head, very small wings, and not feet.

Seriously, look at that pathetic wingspan.

On this enormous bat head there is a tiny little mouth. I guess the toy gets some points for having a working lower jaw. Once closed you have to whack the toy on the noes to open it up again. Anything that promote violence against Beast Wars is fine by me.

Looking at the underside, one can see there is a fair bit of detail to the wings such as visible bones and veins. Of course these details may be hard to notice next to the entirety of the robot mode awkwardly squished together. Oh yeah and my toy has a defective right arm that doesn't properly work in either mode.

What's a Transformer without a robot mode? The answer is those terrible Beast Wars Mutants. That aside, Optimus Primal has a pretty awful robot mode. Ignoring the huge bat head chest (if you can), Primal is just a very generic and vaguely robotic form topped off by a weird Batman-esque head. I don't really get the weird slipper feet either.

Oh and Primal is armed with a pair of crappy swords. A real Optimus would use a good axe.

Megatron fairs slightly better in the beast mode department. He's either an alligator or a crocodile and I don't really care which. He certainly hides his robot bits a lot better.

Much like Optimus, Megatron has the whole opening beast mouth gimmick. Inside you can find somewhat poorly painted teeth and a red tongue.

The robot mode is well, bland. Megatron has been green before, but that only worked because he was a friggen tank. The head is Megatron-esque so that kind of saves this figure from being completely bad.

Does this Megatron have an awesome fusion cannon or rail gun? No, he just has his beast mode tail with a mushy looking flip-out blaster. What an awesome sight to behold. A tail becoming a weapon is one of the most sacred of Transformer traditions and must be continued for generations to come.

So there you have it. The two toys that ushered in a new era of Transformers are both godawful. These don't even have the excuse of being tied to characters from the show as the only fiction with them is a mini-comic with strange prose (WHOSE TUSKS GLEAM IN THE NIGHT) and a muddle backstory. The first two Optimus Primal and Megatron figures ever released are so bad that they taint the entire toyline with their badness. I know you think you own some sweet Beast Wars toys, but because they are from the same line as these two any toy from Beast Wars is automatically terrible by association. Action Masters were better and the Unicorn Trilogy toys were better.

Now you can thank me for making it so that you'll never have to waste time delving into Beast Wars at all. We are all better for that fact.